Dye wastewater exhibits significant ecotoxicity even though its physico-chemical parameters meet the discharge standards. In this work, the acute toxicity and genotoxicity of dye effluent were tested, and the Fenton-coagulation process was carried out to detoxify this dye effluent. The acute toxicity was evaluated according to the mortality rate of zebrafish, and genotoxicity was evaluated by micronucleus (MN) and comet assays. Removal of color and chemical oxygen demand (COD) was also investigated. The results indicated that the dye effluent showed strong acute toxicity and genotoxicity to zebrafish. After 4 h of treatment by Fenton-coagulation process, the dye effluent exhibited no significant acute toxicity and genotoxicity to zebrafish. In addition, its COD was less than 50 mg/L, which met the discharge standard. It demonstrates that Fenton-coagulation process can comprehensively reduce the acute toxicity and genotoxicity as well as the COD of the dye effluent. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.